Really Seeng You
by dragonwriter24cmf
Summary: Bill's not stupid. She knows when the Doctor's hiding something. She can even guess what he's hiding, this time. The only question is, how to make him admit it? And is she ready to face the consequences of knowing for sure? AU post-Chasm Forge, where Bill doesn't miss the fact that the Doctor is still blind.


**Really Seeing You**

Bill knows she's not the smartest person on the planet. Let's face it, with the Doctor around, there's not a lot of people on Earth who can compete for that title is there? But...she's not an idiot either. And she was observant enough to sort out the mystery with the funky living puddle, now wasn't she? At least, she clued the Doctor in on it.

So, she might not be the best and brightest, but she's not what the Doctor calls a pudding-brain either. She notices things.

Like the way the Doctor wears those odd sonic-sunglasses of his all the time now. Or how Nardole's taken to announcing totally random things at odd intervals, like saying loudly "Bill's here." every time she comes in for tutoring. As if the Doctor didn't know she was there.

Like the essays that have different handwriting on them. She's seen enough of the Doctor's spiky script to know when it suddenly changes. And sure, it's a good forgery, but there's a difference in the phrasing, an occasional change in the letters that tells her someone else is writing the notes on her papers these days. A quick comparison of the other essays, the ones Nardole obviously grades for the Doctor's lecture classes, is enough to tell her who's grading her papers now.

And as one of her secondary teachers said once, "Two and two don't make five, so if you've got the wrong answer, then you're missing something."

The thing is, she's got a pretty good idea of what's missing in this equation. She doesn't want to believe it for a while, but the evidence keeps piling up. She plays along for a bit, pretending she doesn't know and hoping the Doctor will tell her. After all, he has to know the charade is too awkward to maintain, right? She can tell he's getting headaches from the sunglasses, and it has to be annoying, having Nardole comment on everything, right?

But time passes, and he seems to have no intention of telling her the truth. And finally, she's had enough. Enough of watching him bluff and bluster his way through situations, through lectures and classes and their meetings. Enough of pretending that she doesn't know what she knows.

She corners Nardole first. "Oi. I know you and the Doctor are hiding something."

Nardole looks flustered. "Er...don't know what you mean."

"Yeah. You do." She sidesteps to block his escape. "Look, you don't want to tell me, that's fine. Just let me find out for myself, yeah? That's all I want. Leave him in the office or something, and I'll ask him myself." She figures she'll have to force the issue, but she's got a plan for that.

Nardole shifts nervously. "I don't know..."

"Come on, he can't fault you if you didn't tell me. I swear, I'll keep your name out of it. He won't know you helped me."

Nardole scowls. "Wouldn't be sure of that."

"Well, you could always just tell me what it is you two are hiding, save us both the trouble."

Nardole makes a face. Then he sighs. "Told him you'd figure it out eventually." He fidgets, then his shoulders slump. "All right. I'll leave early today to check on the vault. You come early, he won't be expecting you. I'll leave the door a bit cracked or something. But no telling him I helped you!" He shakes a finger at her.

"Deal. Won't breathe a word." And she doesn't think she'll have to. She's been planning this for a while.

Her appointments with the Doctor are for six-o-clock in the evening, every day. She shows up at five, getting off work early for once. As promised, the door is cracked open.

She peers inside and grins. She couldn't have asked for a more perfect setup. The Doctor is sitting back in his chair, strumming his guitar. Even better, the sonic-sunglasses are on the desk beside him. Well he's a good musician, of course he can play by feel. And she'd already guessed those sunglasses were giving him a headache, using them so often.

She sets down her bag just inside the door, and her jacket for good measure. He's got good hearing, she doesn't need a thumping pack or rustling cloth to give her away. Then she tiptoes inside.

It's nice, how adventuring with him has made her lighter on her feet. And she was already pretty quiet, a legacy of sneaking around as a kid. And sneaking around her foster mum, back when she worried that she'd get in trouble for bringing dates home. Girl dates.

She sneaks closer. He's too wrapped up in his music to notice, not expecting anyone, not expecting her. She gets to within inches of the desk, navigating away from the chairs, then stops, sets her feet carefully, and strikes. She snatches up the sunglasses from the desk, heedless of the pen cup she knocks over as she steps back, steps away from his reach.

The Doctor starts violently at the sound, guitar making a horrible off-key twang as he jumps and spins in his seat, hand reaching reflexively for the glasses that aren't there anymore.

His hand touches a fallen pen and smooth paper. He searches for a moment, eyes closed. Then draws himself up, standing carefully. "Whoever you are, I suggest you return those, immediately."

She backs toward the door. "Why don't you just come and get them, yeah?"

He jerks again. "Bill?"

She shuts the door, leans back against it. She's angry at him, at a lot of things, but she's not angry enough to humiliate him by leaving potential witnesses to this confrontation. However insulted she feels, she still respects him too much for that.

He shifts uncertainly, fingertips on the desk. "Bill, I'd like those back now, please." He extends his hand. "Give me my sunglasses."

"Like I said, come and get them." She doesn't move.

"Bill..." He starts around the corner of the desk, and staggers a bit. "Bill...please, I have a headache..."

"Bet you do. You mentioned once, sonic stuff works by psychic commands, yeah? Bet it's a lot of work using these glasses all the time. Even for a Time Lord."

"Bill..."

She cuts him off, not wanting to hear any more evasions, excuses, lies. "You know, I was thinkin' earlier today. You know the Scientific Method, Doctor? They teach it in primary school these days. Observe, Form Hypothesis, Develop Experiment, Test Hypothesis, Gather Data, Refine your Theory...all that stuff."

"Yes, of course I know it. I just don't see..."

She cuts in again, this time with a bitterly amused snort. "Bet you don't. But I do see. I've been observing you, Doctor, a good long while. And this...this is a bit of an experiment. You're always telling me to train my mind. So I thought I'd test a theory of mine. Want to know what that theory was?"

"If it will get me my glasses back faster, then certainly." His own tone is as biting as hers, not that she really cares right now.

"My theory is that you won't come get these glasses. Because you can't." She feels all pretense of bravado and humor drop away. "You can't, because you can't tell where I am. You can't see, can you?"

He flinches, and that's enough of an answer. But, typical for him, he tries to bluff. "Bill, I just have a headache..."

"Then you've had one for weeks. Surprised you haven't knocked off Nardole, shouting stuff at you all the time. And it must be a pain, not being able to write or read, having to let him grade your papers and all. Yeah, I noticed that." She clenches a fist, not the hand holding the glasses, and slams it against the door. The Doctor jumps at the noise, and nearly falls over a corner of the desk. "Why'd that startle you, huh? You know I'm here."

"Bill..."

"Just tell me the truth Doctor. Please." Despite her best intentions, her voice cracks on the last word. "I just want you to stop...stop treating me like I'm an idiot or something." And there's the anger she wants to keep feeling, because it's better than the ache that threatens her heart.

He stops, stilling where he stands. Then he sighs and straightens his back, releasing the desk-top, standing without aid. Finally, he blinks his eyes open. They're dark, but unfocused, looking at nothing. "You're right."

"You're blind." And the anger's gone again, just like that.

"Yes."

"Since when?" Not that she doesn't know, but she needs the confirmation.

"Since Chasm Forge."

Since he gave up his sight to save her life. Since he walked in the vacuum of space without a helmet. Since he dared the void to keep her safe, sacrificed his own vision for her.

She swallows hard against tears. "I thought...the TARDIS...I thought Nardole cured you. I thought you fixed it..."

"So did he, at the time. But..." He shakes his head, careful and cautious in his darkness, deprived of vision twice over by her actions. "It wasn't a cure, not really. Even Time Lord medicine can only do so much."

"But, you knew where we were, you saw the two workers...you weren't using your glasses then."

"A psychic link to the TARDIS. I was seeing through her sensors, her senses, as it were. But it only works inside her doors. Not beyond. Hence the glasses." He waves a hand in something that might be generously interpreted as her direction. "They help me see, after a fashion. The shapes of solid objects, when there are people in the room...bit like bat sonar, really, only more advanced."

That wrings a wry, if watery, laugh from her. "Psychic, highly advanced bat sonar?"

A small answering grin quirks his lips. "Does sound a bit ridiculous when you put it like that."

"Yeah." The mirth vanishes again. "Why? Why hide it from me? From those other people, I get it, yeah, but why'd you try to hide it from me? Thought you trusted me."

Trusted her, cared for her, thought of her as more than one more pudding-brain on a planet full of them. Didn't he make a mad dash through time just to give her pictures of her mum? And take her around the future and the past, show her the wonders of the universe?

Didn't he give up his sight to save her? And doesn't she deserve to know?

"Bill..." He stops, then steps carefully, gingerly, around the desk, guiding himself with a hand touched lightly on the edge. Then around the chairs. Then across the office with gentle, careful steps, until he's right in front of her.

One hand reaches up and out, cautious and questing, to touch on her shoulder. Then travels up, light as a feather, to touch her cheek. A callused thumb traces over the track of a tear she didn't even realize she'd cried.

"Thought you were blind."

"I am. But I heard you shut the door, and I didn't hear you move away. And I can hear the change in your voice when you cry. I can smell the chips and your antiperspirant, and your clothes." A brief smile touches his lips. "The wind in your shirt."

She said that to him their first meeting. It's enough to produce a weak smile. "That so?"

"Yes. And that's better." She realizes he must have felt her smile, the way it changed the angle of her cheek and her eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She repeats the question, because she truly wants to know.

"Because I knew you'd take it badly."

She reaches up her own hand, daring to touch his face, since he can't see to stop her and he's too proud to pull away after she's touched him. "You lost...you _gave up_ your sight for me."

"I made a choice. You wouldn't have survived the trek without your helmet. I would. I knew I would. My biology can withstand a vacuum and a void longer than a human."

"Doesn't mean it didn't hurt you."

"Losing my sight..."

"It hurt you. I know it did. Saw you, when we were walking across. I was in and out, but I saw you." She only mentioned it in passing to Nardole, but she's remembered it in her dreams since. "We were walking. Nearly there, and you fell. You were in pain. Was all over your face. You were hurting. Had your jaw clenched, like you were trying not to scream out or something. Someone helped you up. Sort of faded out again after that, but I remember. You were in pain."

He flinches, just a bit. "I thought you were unconscious the entire time."

"I wasn't." She remembers his lecture, from just before they went. "It was like you told the class, wasn't it? Low pressure, nitrogen bubbles forming in your blood, until they pop and start to vaporize. And the liquid in your tear ducts, it went first, yeah? Suit might have helped with it a bit, but without your helmet, your face wasn't protected, not enough. Like you told me, the oxygen field and the force field couldn't normalize with the zero pressure." She feels herself crying again, feels the tears dripping down her cheek and across his hand. She doesn't care. Let him feel her cry, and know these tears are for the pain he endured on her behalf.

Somehow, she doesn't think he's had enough of that, of having someone weep for him. There's things he's said, things he's done, the way he used to look at the photos on his desk, that make her think he's been the one to weep, more often than others.

She wonders if he even can weep anymore. Or did the void destroy his capacity for tears as well? Whatever pain he carries with him, has he lost his ability to express it, as well as his sight? Is he lost in the dark without even the solace of expressing the grief for what he has lost? The fear that even he must feel, to be blind? She's sure it's fear, in part, that's induced him to keep up this facade of being fine.

He sighs. "The cold...I didn't feel most of it. Benefits of near-absolute-zero temperatures, I suppose. I didn't feel it at first. Not until...not until just before..." His words stumble to a halt. For the first time, he drops the mask, and she sees the toll this has taken on him. The weariness and the wariness, engraved in the lines of his face.

"But...when we got inside, after we got safe...that's why you went into the medical area."

"Yes." He looks uncomfortable admitting that. "The blue fellow, I think it was, gave me something for the pain...nice of him, all things considered..."

"But how…?" She's not sure what she wants to ask.

How does he cope, trapped in darkness, when he's used to all the colors of a thousand worlds? How can he stand being blind, trapped in a world of endless night with only his sonic glasses to give him any form of vision? Reduced to sonar when he's the type of man who could travel a million light-years just to show off the wonder of a birthing galaxy?

Somehow, he seems to understand. "I spend a lot of time in the TARDIS. The psychic connection, the sensors...and the glasses are better than nothing, you know. Better than real sight in some cases, though not most. They miss a lot of details. Been meaning to tinker with them, but it's a delicate process, and not being able to see what I'm doing..." He shrugs. "The rest of the time, Nardole helps. Or tries to. Sometimes he's more an annoyance than a help." He offers her a wry grin.

"Yeah. Guessed that." She offers him a weak grin, knowing he'll feel it. Hear it in her voice maybe. Then she traces her fingers across his face. "But it gives you headaches."

"Sometimes. I always was a bit of a rubbish psychic. Not my best area. Even practice with the TARDIS doesn't do much for that."

"And you...you'll be like this..." For the rest of your life, she doesn't want to say. For maybe hundreds of years, is her second thought, and she doesn't say that either.

"Not forever. Only until my next regeneration. Or before that, if I find a cure. Or Nardole does. He's been looking." She can hear the false confidence in his voice, and wishes she could believe it.

"But until then...you're blind."

"I can't see with my eyes. Not necessarily the same thing." He grins.

The challenge is a welcome diversion from the melancholy that grips her. "Yeah, how's that?"

"Close your eyes."

She does. Normally she'd be leery of a suggestion like that, perhaps especially from him, but – well, he's wandering in the dark, so why shouldn't she join him? So she does as he asks.

"What do you sense?"

She thinks about it. Without her sight, her other senses are working to pick up the slack.

She can feel. The smooth, slick hardness of the glasses frames in her hand. The weathered softness of his cheek, over the sharp angle of his cheekbone and jaw. Under the tip of one finger, the roughness of his short-cropped sideburns. The shifts of the muscles in his face as he speaks. The slight nip of air, because she's not used to going without her jacket, and it feels a bit colder. The softness of her shirt, the worn feeling of her jeans, and the slight differences in the soles of her shoes from long hours standing. The temperature difference of the fading sunlight where it just brushes her shoulder.

She can hear. The thump of her heart. Their breathing, in it's different rhythms. Muted footsteps outside the door, faculty and students wandering the halls. The tick of the clock in his office. The low rumble of his voice, deeper somehow.

She can smell. Leather from his books. The faint odor of oil and salt from her shirt, from work. The scent of her shampoo. Some weird combination of scents, overlaid with a metallic tang that she knows is him. His breath, soft on her face, with the pastrami she thinks he had for lunch, and the tea he's always drinking.

She thinks that if she sticks her tongue out, she'd taste the slightly dusty air of his office. She wonders, if she licked his hand, where it rests on her cheek, would she taste ink and paper and the residue of his guitar strings? The linen of his sleeves? If she got really wild and stretched up to lick his face, would she taste that odd mustard he likes on his sandwiches, or some ketchup or salt and vinegar from some chips? The after-flavor of his tea, dried on the corner of his mouth? The salt tang of sweat, or whatever might be on a Time Lord's skin?

Good thing she's not into blokes, or she might be tempted to try, and never mind that he is old enough for her to call him 'grand-dad' on occasion. As it is, she thinks that's a bit too far, even for one of his weird assignments.

Though she's still a bit tempted to try, just with the hand, to feel him react. She bets that would be funny, and there's some lingering edge of nearly forgotten anger that thinks she might like to make him jump a little.

She settles for letting the hand on his face drift, following the contours of jaw and brow. Tracing the shell of his ear, the line of his jaw. Running through the tangle of his hair, which feels like it hasn't been properly combed in an age. Which makes sense if he's blind, especially that he's never seemed that concerned with it before anyway.

She explores his face, feeling him go startled and still beneath her touch, then runs her hands lower. Down his jaw, across the thin line of his throat. It feels different, the soft crinkles that are wrinkles when he tilts his head right, the line of his Adam's apple. She wonders if Time Lords still call it an Adam's Apple, or something else. His shoulders, which feel a lot broader than she normally thinks they look. Stronger. Across his chest, and – yeah, he does have two heartbeats, he said he did, but she's never had a chance to verify that, but there they are, pounding away under her hands – and down the line of the buttons on his shirt.

He makes a strangled sound when she hits his waist, and the line that marks the top of his trousers. "Bill, what are you doing?" His hand fumbles for hers.

"Seeing you. Like you told me to. Is what you meant, right?" She grins, imagining the look on his face.

"There is such a thing as seeing too much." His voice has gone higher, and she can just imagine the look of outraged dignity on his face. He might even be blushing.

"I know. But I never said you couldn't look too." And yes, that's definitely a bit rude, and a bit naughty, but she feels like teasing him. He's the one who left her in the dark about his condition, so to speak.

The strangled yelp he makes is definitely worth it, and she can imagine the look on his face changing to one of horrified shock. "Bill..."

She can't help needling him just a bit more. "Come on now Doctor, we're both adults, and – well, I'm not into blokes, and you're not really that interested in me, yeah? It's all just a bit of investigating."

He jumps like she's poked him in the ribs – there's a thought, is he ticklish? Perfect time to find out, when he'd never see her coming – and snatches one hand back. "Still very improper. I'd get fired for something like that. And you might too."

"Doubt it. You've got, like, eternal tenure, and I just work in the canteen. I'm not a student." Still, she lets up on him, moving her hands off his waist. Never mind anyone else, she doesn't want to know what Nardole would say if he walked in and found them like that.

She can hear his sigh of relief, as well as feeling the breath of it on her face. "Yes, well, still..." His hand comes up, going from her shoulder to her hand, still holding the sonic sunglasses. "I trust your hypothesis has been well and truly tested?"

"Tested, verified and refined, yeah." She releases the glasses back into his hand. He starts to put them on his face, then stops and folds them carefully into a pocket on his jacket instead. She appreciates the silent vote of confidence.

"And your conclusion?"

"You can't see. But maybe you're not so blind after all. Just one more question."

"Of course. You always have questions." He sighs, but doesn't seem too put out.

"When you're in the TARDIS, when you're using that psychic link and all...do you see colors?"

"Of course. Colors, shapes, everything a TARDIS can see."

"And the stuff on the screens, yeah?"

"Of course. Though it's not so much on the screens as it is in my head, sort of." He taps his temple.

"Good. That's something."

"Yes. It is. It's enough." His voice softens, along with the lines of his face. "You needn't worry. It's a bit of an inconvenience at times, and a bit difficult, but...it's not impossible. And I'm...I'm all right. More or less."

"Just wish I hadn't cost you something so important." Her own smile is sad. He can probably tell, even blind as he is.

"It was worth it, for what I saved." The words are quiet, but the impact in her heart isn't. "It would always be worth it."

She can't think how to respond to that. Lucky her, he saves her the trouble. "So, I want an essay describing an object with all your senses. Can be as complex or as simple as you like, and as long as you need to do a good job of it. Give me your impressions, all five senses, as well as any thoughts the object or the exercise produces."

"Sure." She pauses in the act of leaning to pick up her bag. "If I scan it into the TARDIS, you'd be able to read it, yeah? I know Nardole's been grading my stuff lately."

"I could, yes."

"Great. I'll do that then." She'll have to spend some money on a flash drive, but they aren't that expensive these days. And for the project she has in mind, she definitely wants to see his face when he reads her paper.

Back home, she pulls out the box of photos he left for her and searches through them, until she finds a specific one.

It's a picture of her mum, standing in front of a glass. And reflected in the background, the Doctor and Nardole, with a camera. The picture that told her that he'd gifted her with the photos for Christmas.

It feels smooth and slick and cool, and it smells like old film and the box it's kept in. Tastes, under the tip of her tongue, like plastic and the fading chemicals used to process it. No sound of course, but looking at it makes her think of her mum's laughter and the click of an old-fashioned camera, the snap of the flash she can see reflected in the picture. Pulling it out of it's box also produces the thin rustle of the other photos, moving against each other, fetching up against the sides of the box, and she includes all those notes dutifully.

She describes the image, and then, because he told her to describe her impressions, she describes how it makes her think of her mum, what it tells her about the person her mother was, the stories she's written around the circumstances of this photo.

And she describes her impressions of him. Of the Doctor. Of this strange, awkward man, thin and nervous, older but somehow ageless, with his silver hair and intense eyes and his expressive face. This man who has watched people die and helped people live, walked the roads of history and all the potentials of the future. Who lives within her present like it's a gift, and like she might be one too, even though she often feels as if he's the one who's giving her a gift. This strange traveler who brought the universe into her world, brought the stars and all of time to life for her. And her mum, the memories of the woman who loved her the most in the world, and who she never really knew before he came into her world. Who gave up his sight to the void for her, and used his condition to teach her to see with every sense she has, despite how he must mourn for what he's lost.

He's taught her ruthlessness and sacrifice, love and hate, peace born from war. This man, who is a walking contradiction, never at peace with himself and yet always utterly assured of his path. Warrior and Healer, Peacemaker and Killer and so many other things in between.

She writes about his two hearts, and how she thinks he needs both of them, because he's just too full of different things, different forces and emotions and thoughts, to survive with just one.

She writes, and she writes, the longest paper she's ever written, and maybe the longest she'll ever write.

Because she's seen the Doctor, really seen him for what feels like it might be the first time. And she wants to show him that.

 _ **Author's Note:** I never really thought Bill just failed to notice that he was blind. Couldn't quite buy it. So...a little AU one-shot where she notices because it's kind of obvious._


End file.
